Marin County Bicycle Coalition

Legislation

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey with MCBC staff at Bike Summit 2011

Last Updated: April, 2011

The Marin County Bicycle supports key legislative efforts at the state and federal levels to improve bicycle policies and increase funding for programs that build bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Our organization served a leadership role in having Congress authorize $612 million in funding for Safe Routes to School for five years during the year 2005. In that same year, we were also successful insecuring authorization of $100 million for the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program, which provides $25 million each to four communities to demonstrate how walking and bicycling can improve mobility and health, while decreasing pollution and car use.

State Legislative Update

MCBC supports SB 1061 (Hancock). This bill authorizes the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) to spend future revenues from bridge tolls to construct a bicycle-pedestrian-maintenance pathway on the western portion of the San Francisco Bay Bridge between Yerba Buena Island and San Francisco.

See the archives below for information on past state legislative victories.

Please see the California Bicycle Coalition's webpage for details about other state legislation efforts. The California Bicycle Coalition promotes bicycling to create safe, healthy, and livable communities. The CBC is your voice in state government.

In February 2009, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who is Chair of the Congressional Bike Caucus, release a summary of federal progress on bicycling during the 110th Congress (2007 and 2008). Click here to read the update.

In October 2008, the Bike Commuter Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. The Bicycle Commuter Act provides employers a tax break of up to $20 a month if they give some bicycle commuting benefits to their employees. It's a modest step forward. "It may not be a total game changer," the League of American Bicyclist’s Andy Clarke told Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. "It's still a relatively small break. But it gets us closer to the kind of treatment that cyclists in the U.K. and other parts of the world have had for years."

Work is also underway at the national level to expand provisions for bicycling and Safe Routes to School in the 2009 transportation bill. The Safe Routes to School National Partnership is leading federal efforts on that program, while America Bikes is pushing the broad bicycling agenda.

Legislative News - Archives

The following bill that MCBC supported was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger on September 30, 2008: